The present invention pertains in general to means for securing a child seat to a vehicle seat using a traditional seat belt system available in the vehicle, and more particularly, to the construction and use of a seat belt tensioning apparatus to improve the retention of the child seat by removing the excess slack and thereby increasing the tension of the seat belt.
When a small child rides in a vehicle, the child is often placed in a child seat mounted on a seat of the vehicle. A child seat is typically secured to the automobile in some fashion utilizing the seat belts that are supplied inside the vehicle. For example, a child seat may be secured to a vehicle seat by passing a lap safety belt about the child seat and, in effect, buckling it in place on the vehicle seat just as a passenger would buckle himself to the vehicle seat. However, the standard seat belts for an automobile are designed to secure an adult to the seat of the automobile rather than to hold a child seat. Consequently, a child seat is typically designed so that it could be secured to a vehicle seat using several different types of restraining means available in different automobiles. These include but are not limited to lap belts, shoulder belts, combined lap and shoulder belts and the like.
Due to the various configurations of the seat belt systems, a seat belt may be routed at times through a complex path around or through the child seat to secure the child seat to the vehicle seat. As a result, there may be excess slack in the seat belt. The excess slack may cause the child safety seat to move around in the vehicle seat, which may in turn cause the child occupant to move around in the child safety seat during the normal operation of the vehicle. In the event of an accident, a tremendous inertia change may occur within the vehicle. The force resulting from the tremendous inertia change may transfer to the child safety seat to cause it and its child occupant to move around, and may thereby causing injury to the child occupant.
Therefore, it is highly desirable to provide an apparatus which could be used to remove the excess slack from the automobile safety belt system to increase the tension of the vehicle seat belt, resulting in a more secure and safer child seat installation.